This week we did something completely new to me, something very
different. Over here in the Valley Forge they love their missionary
work. They love it so much that they went out and got us all the
permits and things necessary to set up a booth at the 69th street
train station for the Prince of Peace initiative. It's pretty JW style
honestly, except we are a little bit more proactive. It was a bunch of
"Can we show you a quick video about Jesus Christ?"'s and a lot of
"no"'s too. But that's okay! I only did it once because of exchanges
and whatnot, but the first day Elder Berry did it, they showed the
video to like 24 people in 2 hours! When we did it we showed it like 5
times in 2 hours. I mean it was raining, people are usually moody
when it rains right? The JW's were only a few feet from us and we
talked to way more people anyways. Like I said, it's pretty different
for us, so it will be interesting to see how it goes this week! I also
got to go on exchanges early in the week. Now this was the first
exchange since my first area, Lehighton, over a year ago that in the
exchange neither I, nor the other elder was in a leadership position.
It was so great! I was with Elder Brown and Elder Yirenya-Tawiah, who
have been out 4 and 3 months respectively. They are from Pleasent
Grove, Utah and Tema, Ghana. I'm sure you can figure out which name
matches up with each location. Anyways I just followed them around
most the day, but they needed a little bit of help on some lessons so
I was able to show them a few tricks. It's interesting how it doesn't
require a title for people to look up to you, it's more important who
you are and what you do! I loved being with them, they are great
Elders.
We picked up this awesome new investigator named Dessire this week!
She's from Côte d'Ivoire, which I think is awesome because back in the
day when it was announced that the Ivory Coast would be getting a
temple I always pictured myself serving my mission there, and now I'm
finally teaching someone from there! Anyways, she came here from New
York and her mom is one of those hard to catch investigators, but
Dessire was looking for a church and her mom told her about ours! She
hasn't really been since we've been around, but we called her up and
she was excited to have us over! French class definitely did not stick
with me...
Now I know some people always appreciate my stories about food... so
while I did extend my pizza streak all the way until Tuesday (5 days),
that's not the newsworthy event because that happens almost all too
often. My district leader is just a transfer older than me and is
looking to slim down before he heads home. He introduced the idea of a
juice cleanse to me last week and has been encouraging me ever since!
I bought the necessary juices, but was very hesitant to do it at the
beginning of the week with fear that a random meal might pop up. That
wasn't the case, so Friday morning I started the long 3 day journey.
It was a rough morning, but I pushed through. Later in the afternoon
we just finished a lesson where we brought a recent convert Momoh. He
moved here from Sierra Leone no more than 3 months ago, so we were
quizzing him on American food and he really hadn't tried much. We
walked past a cheesesteak place and I told him we could get him his
first cheesesteak. Turns out the owner of the cheesesteak place,
Frank, absolutely loves us missionaries and has been waiting for Elder
Berry and I to come in and meet him! After I ordered a cheesesteak for
Elder Berry and Momoh to split, Frank handed each of us a bag of fries
and came to chat with us. So here I am, a very hungry boy, holding a
fresh bag of fries and watching my fellow brothers eat a cheesesteak,
which Frank ended us giving to us FREE. Are you kidding? I carried my
fries all the way home and wrapped them up for later, then we headed
out to see a few more people. Before going in to drink my dinner we
saw the Petersons, our senior couple in our complex who said "have you
had supper yet?" I guess some member fed them and gave them extra food
for us. Mac n Cheese, fried chicken, King's Hawaiian rolls, cookies. I
had to watch Elder Berry eat that all while I drank my juice. Wo is
me. I'd like to report that I do in fact have self control and I
finished my juice cleanse last night and enjoyed a big plate of
chicken, corn and rice (with a cookie). Sadly I didn't lose any weight
from this experiment so I guess my only positive outcome of this silly
diet is that I have self control (at least for 3 days). I'm sure
that's a Christlike attribute, right? I hope you all have a wonderful
week!
1) cheesesteaks with the trio
2) Suzie's (my car) black cousin Suziniqua!!!
3) Momoh offered to split this cheesesteak with me... self control
4) West Philly
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